


Momentary

by Flora_Obsidian



Series: home is where your hearts are [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Post-Time War, Pre-Time War, Time Shenanigans, Time War, being a box can get kind of boring, it also likes puns and messing with people, look the moment is terrifying and scary powerful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-03 00:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11521017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flora_Obsidian/pseuds/Flora_Obsidian
Summary: moment/ˈmōmənt/noun1. a very brief period of timeeternity/əˈtərnədē/noun1. a state to which time has no application; timelessnessThe first thing it discovered outside its own existence was war.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of right now, this story is four chapters in length, with all four of those chapters pre-written, and then snippets of things that come afterward. I'm not sure if those snippets are going to become a separate story or get tagged on to the end of this as we go, but for now, this is chapter one of four.
> 
> Technically, this is a precursor to _Advent_ , but you don't need to read that to understand what's happening here -- though, of course, I recommend reading both.

The first thing it remembered – such as a box could _remember_ , at any rate, such as something made of code and wiring and gears and just a dollop of space-time could _remember_ – the first thing that it remembered was being in a lab. It had other pieces of code that dated before its awakening, though, fragments of things that indicated it had existed for some time before the Now, the present, where it currently rested in relation to the rest of the universe--

\--the universe!

Space-time as a concept solidified into something more tangible, and it eagerly embraced such a thing. It reached out to touch time itself, marveling at the feel of the threads, possibilities stretching and spiraling away, infinity layered atop infinity until it was almost too much to comprehend. The universe herself was singing as she spread ever-outward, leaving matter and energy in her footprints behind her; space stretched vast and endless before it.

It listened to the music of the spheres, lost in the noise, something beautiful and unlike anything else. Of course, at that time, its first awakening, it had very little to go on – what was beautiful, what was unique – but even now, eternities later, it had yet to hear something like her songs.

The first thing it remembered was being in a lab, listening to her songs drowning out all else in its awareness, wrapped in its own little pocket of space-time.

The first thing it knew was feeling content.

* * *

Contentment lasted for a time, eternity compressed into the space of a single moment, and then it began to wonder, curious if there was more beauty than space-time and her songs. Surely something as beautiful as what it knew could only be comprised of things more beautiful.

The first thing it discovered outside its own existence was war.

Outside its bundle of space-time was the lab, and outside of the lab was a city, and outside of the city was a planet on fire. It witnessed the destruction of continents and ships and lives numbering in the thousands of millions-- stinging pain, though it did not yet have a concept for _pain_. A galaxy, and a planet, and a continent on the planet, and a city nestled between ridged mountains, and a building underneath the city, and a section of the building, and a room filled with light and life.

It did not have a word for joy, not yet, but something akin to that emotion flared up inside of it. It would not understand this, as a box was not supposed to feel, but it felt all the same.

It brushed up against the bright little lives, so small, so hard to focus on, but so very much like galaxies in their own right. It wanted to see the stars inside, the cosmic dust drifting by on solar wind and the ebb and flow of a dual heartbeat, the vast and swirling nebulae such bright things must surely contain. Wanted to know if the universe sang through them in the same way her music echoed across the vast emptiness of space. But the little lights flickered and dimmed, the closer it got, with every pressing shift as it tried to bask in their glow-- it shifted backwards and watched in satisfaction as they burst into golden color anew.

Fragile little lives. It could be gentle-- it would be gentler next time, it would. But not now, as the lights were moving away, and it had no desire to try and follow them. It listened to the universe sing to distract it from the war in the skies and pondered that which it found in the light. An imagine of the room around it. A box on a work bench. Something intangibly cold and paralyzing.

Weapon. Galaxy Eater. _Moment_.

It listened, and it thought.

* * *

_What happened in there?_

_The Weapon was dormant, as expected-- we were going to analyze the results of a partial activation, as the completed result has been functioning far beyond initial predictions. And then..._

_Regeneration does not just **happen** , much less to half a dozen in the same room at the same time._

_But it did. We could..._

_...we could feel it, inside our heads. Like nothing else I've ever felt._

_It has to be destroyed._

_It is powerful--_

_\-- **too** powerful._

_Too powerful to be destroyed, perhaps._

_Tell me when it goes dormant again._

* * *

They brought it to a dark, dark place.

It had no need of light or dark to be aware of its surroundings. It was power immeasurable wrapped up in fragile casing, nothing less; light and dark had no real meaning. But regardless of the number of particles that sped around it, absorbed into shadows and glinting off embossed metal carved into its sides, it was still _dark_. The murmur of voices in other minds were distant; there was still a war raging in the stars; the universe hissed in pain as time snagged around it.

There was simply... nothing.

 _Did I hurt you?_ it tried to ask the lights, the murmuring voices and distant minds, but it never received an answer.

It ticked and hummed in the darkness, eternity bleeding into eternity until the war ended, and then, for nothing better to do, it ticked and hummed in the darkness until the songs of the universe lulled it into dormancy.

* * *

Once, in the dark place, it tried to look at the light of the guards outside. It was gentler, this time around-- it could be gentle, it _could_ be. This time, they did not notice, and they did not die. But it did not understand much of what it found, thoughts and names and _emotions_.

It was a box. It was not supposed to feel.

But it listened. It learned, as the guards changed and the centuries dragged out into millennia.

* * *

Once, in the dark place, it tried to trace its own timelines back to its origin. It found a tangle, for it could see everything and everywhen, every way the future can go and every way the past could have gone, and such things were difficult to parse through in a way that made linear, logical sense-- but it found something familiar in a time and place far from Gallifrey, the planet of its birth. Something gold.

 _I bring life_ , whispered that familiarity.

The Moment withdrew, satisfied for now, if confused-- for it knew that it only brought death. That was its purpose, after all. It had learned that much.

* * *

It woke up with a sting.

 _Pain_ was something unfamiliar to it; it knew of the concept, and it knew that such a thing was inherently tied to its state of being, but it did not think it felt in the same way other beings did. It was energy wrapped up neat inside a box, power immeasurable but a Moment away – what need did it have to feel? But it was certainly a sting that it felt, a new feeling, deeply uncomfortable, something that made it want to crawl as far away as it possibly could.

The first thing that it ever discovered outside of its own existence was war, and the pain had been stinging-- but this was--

The Moment did not sleep in the biological sense of the word, but it woke up regardless, and with each increment of passing time, it became more aware of the world around it, and the war above it, around it-- _everywhere_. War, all-encompassing. Time congealed around it like glue. Lives were bursting into golden light and being extinguished just as quickly-- space rippled and warped and _ripped_ , and time was close to falling as it caught on itself, on stray planets, on the arm of a galaxy.

It did not have a stomach to feel _ill_ with, but it flinched away and pulled its awareness down to just itself, and the dark place around it-- the Time Vault, and the Omega Arsenal, though vastly emptier than it remembered them being.

It did not have eyes to close; it could not pretend to be asleep. It did not even know of the concept. But though it should not be able to, it still _hoped_ that it might be able to fall back into some state of dormancy, that if it remained inactive, it would not be taken and used.

This pain was horrific. It could not imagine what its detonation would feel like. The pain that would cause.

 _I bring life_ , whispered an old familiarity.

Oh, if only.

* * *

On Earth, there was a war so terrible that they called it The War to End All Wars. The Great War. Twenty years later, there was another war, worse than the first one, and more wars to follow.

On Gallifrey, there was a Time War. It ended, Gallifrey victorious. The Time Lords, victorious. They were pacifists; they watched, they contained, they did not interfere.

On Gallifrey, there was the War. The Last Great Time War-- the _last_ , a war that would end all other wars, for as it raged, there seemed to be no possible future in which the universe survived. Galaxies burned. The Time Lords fell, the enemy swarming around their planet, breaching defenses which had never before been broken-- Arcadia fell, and with it, half of the remaining population.

And in the midst of the blood and death stood a man, and the man looked on what had been wrought, and said _no more_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! This chapter's mostly exposition, I know, but there will be more plot-based things coming up very soon.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated, and you can come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moment, meet Doctor.

It was moving. Or, rather, it was being moved.

It did not sleep in the biological sense of the word. It was a box, power immeasurable just a Moment away; it did not, _could not_ sleep. Yet, at the same time, it had remained in a state of hibernation since the end of the war which it had been built for, resting in the Vaults, the depths of the Omega Arsenal. It felt time and space warp and rend and die around it; it felt the universe slow in her singing, the great and glorious symphony interrupted with violence and cries of pain.

It had remained in a state of hibernation, stubbornly dormant. It knew the purpose for which it had been crafted, and it had no desire to fulfill such a thing, and it hoped that if it stayed quiet and unobtrusive, it might stay forgotten about.

It felt the universe writhing in agony, voice broken; it felt the planet burn; it stayed quiet, quiet, quiet.

It was moving. Or, rather, it was being moved. And it knew that it might not have a choice anymore.

It felt space shifting around it; listened close, and it heard the harried breaths of the man carrying it in some kind of sack as he ran; his footsteps on the cold floors; twin hearts pounding rapid staccato beats in his chest; sirens wailing. His mind was filled with fear, but determination, too. It felt his timelines around it like the ebb and flow of the solar winds, and it felt something _familiar_.

 _No more_ gasped the man, throwing open a set of doors and diving through and slamming them shut behind him, and the TARDIS took flight, and the Moment listened to the creak and groan and strain of Her engines, how she struggled to fly when time was so badly damaged, bleeding out, congealing messy around the wounds and scars of battles endlessly fought.

 _No more_.

Awake, now, it shied away from time as it was, twisted nearly beyond all recognition. It dared not communicate with the time capsule, wary and brittle as She was. The man's mind was sloppily shielded, though such things meant little to it, for all its strength; _no more no more no more_.

It prodded at those thoughts, at his mind. Gentle. It had no wish to harm.

A city called Arcadia, and half of Gallifrey's remaining population slaughtered. Entire continents set aflame. A transmission, of final plans in the making. Nothing but death and death and _death_.

 _I bring life_ , said the familiarity, said the familiarity somewhere in the man's lifetime.

 _No more_.

If it was to be used, these motives were better than some, a last resort when there seemed no other option, rather than ending a conflict before it could begin, or a gain for needless power.

 _No more_.

It dug deeper. _Doctor_ , was the name it found. A man who had spent his life flitting from one star system to the next, never able to stop in one place or rest for long. Another name, too, buried even deeper than the first, but Doctor felt to be the one more accurate, more pertinent to the situation at hand. _Euthanize_.

This stranger, this Doctor-man, left his ship behind and started to walk.

_No more._

It was moving. Or, rather, it was being moved.

_No more._

It reached out and tugged at time and space and saw all of eternity stretching out before it, possibilities condensing into probabilities converging into two options that remained opened to it. To them.

_Time Lords of Gallifrey, Daleks of Skaro, I serve notice on you all..._

* * *

It braided time together and crafted a face for itself to wear, wrapping itself around the familiarity, its very essence, the thing that linked its creation to the life of this Doctor-man. Someone he knew. Someone who had wrapped around his timeline and held a glimmer of recognition. Space warped as it stepped into the realm of physicality, feeling strangely off-balance, feet underneath it for the first time, a sliver of power immeasurable projected into a form given flesh. The Doctor-man startled at the noise, going to the door to peer outside of it, mind filled with panic and fear that he had been followed; the Moment looked at the room, fragile wood and dust and light far more yellow than that of the lab or the gray gloom of the Vaults it was kept in. It, for the first time, experienced the peculiarity of seeing itself with eyes of flesh while simultaneously being aware of its body while still as power just barely contained in a box, present in two places in the same slice of space-time, each regarding the other.

It blinked at a long strand of hair, a paler yellow than the light. It wobbled on new feet, settling itself down on the closest surface – itself, coincidentally, which was something somehow stranger than regarding itself with its own awareness.

“Hello?” called the Doctor-man, bristling with nerves, fright so powerful that it could nearly _taste_ it, paranoia, but also-- something brighter? Hope? He _wanted_ someone to stop him. That, or to have someone tell him his choice was the right one. A man with morals, yet driven to consider dual genocide. “Is someone there?”

“It's nothing,” it answered, reaching for a language in a tongue the man could understand, finding a myriad of words-- but the one it found first was not the language of its creators, not his own Gallifreyan. “'S just a wolf.”

The panic spiked-- confusion, too, for there was only one physical entrance in the room. Then he was surging forward, grabbing it, hurrying it away, and it was too startled to really protest. No one had ever touched it before.

“You can't sit on that!”

It could sit on itself if it _wanted_ to.

“Why not?”

“Because it's not a _chair_ , it's the most dangerous weapon in the universe!” He pushed it out the door, and it heard the wood creak shut and a bar be settled into place to keep it out, and for half an instant, it was ready to simply burn the barrier to naught but dust. Power immeasurable just a Moment away.

Eternity compressed itself into the space of time between one heartbeat and the next, though it had no heart or hearts to speak of. It looked at the sand under its feet, reached down to touch it and feel the rough grains underneath new fingers-- looked up to the mountains in the distance-- felt the tremors deep within the ground as the enemy continued their bombardment of Gallifrey's capital city a hemisphere away-- felt the light of twin suns in a smoggy orange sky.

It had never seen the sunslight before. Not of these suns. Not of any sun. It had felt stars burn and fade and spring into burning life anew, but the warmth they gave had yet to reach its skin until here and now.

Eternity compressed itself into the space of time between one heartbeat and the next before snapping back to span distance impossible to quantify, and it sat back down on the box before it had the chance to lose its balance again.

“Why can't it be both?” it asked, propping its head up on one hand and watching him, but thinking of the suns. The warmth.. Fear spiked again as he turned away from the door. His mind was a twisted tangle of thoughts, fear most prominent, determination, exhaustion. He was thinking of people, faces, places, things he doubted he could ever see again. It picked out an image of a little blue TARDIS and pondered. “Why did you park so far away? Didn't you want Her to see it?”

“Want who to see?”

The image of the TARDIS grew larger in his mind, unbidden-- a feeling of home, contentedness. He knew exactly who.

“The _TARDIS_.” It hissed the last syllable, relishing the feel of the word on its tongue, nudging at the glow of the ship in question-- it meant no harm, in truth. “You walked for miles, and miles, and miles--”

“I was thinking,” he snapped-- of this planet, and what he would do, and how he hated himself for planning to do it. Another thought, less prominent, but there all the same-- better him than someone else, better than he take this guilt onto his own shoulders and do the unthinkable than force another to. He was no coward.

“I heard you.”

“Heard me--?”

“No more,” it said, and the words were echoed with that desperate conviction in the Doctor-man's mind. “No more.” Lower, like his own voice-- how close could it get to that while still in this form, it wondered? Could it sound like him? Imitate his walk? “No more. No _more_.”

“Stop it--”

“ _No more._ ” It stared at him, dug deeper into his mind as he remained completely oblivious, seeing his convictions, his hopes and his fears, the horrors of the War that he had seen. Yes, he wanted someone to tell him that he was right-- or that he was wrong-- he didn't _want_ to do this, but he felt that it was absolutely necessary. The War was going to burn the universe if allowed to grow; it found a thought of a woman, her face blurred and impossible to see, for he could not remember it-- a transmission from her, encrypted, just a few words. Final Sanction. _End_.

“Who _are_ you?”

If anyone was to use the Moment, it would be this man. That did not mean that the Moment should be used. That it wanted to be used.

The box ticked and whirred as it acquiesced, and it settled itself on another of the crates in the room, watching. The Doctor-man knelt by the box, and all the while it kept picking up pieces of thought, ideas, memories.

His own question forgotten, though the Moment could see Time ahead of him and knew he would find out, one way or another, he shook his head. “It's activating. You have to get out of here.”

It swung its legs back and forth from the crate, feeling the air move around them, the bounce of its heels as they knocked against the wood. No, no-- he wasn't ready, not just yet. If anyone was to use the Moment, it would be this man. That did not mean that the Moment should be used-- that did not mean that the man was ready to use it.

“Ow!” Fear was overtaken briefly by pain, and the Doctor-man jerked away.

“What's wrong?”

“The interface is hot.”

“Well, I do my best.”

The more it shuffled through his thoughts, the more it realized-- emotions, personality-- that of this face, the way the woman who it belonged to would poke her tongue between her teeth when she smiled, the strength of her will-- the familiarity, stemming from a point when her own power surged, much like its own was capable of doing, linked to the instant of its own awakening.

 _I bring life_ , the woman had said, is saying, will say. And her name...

“There's a power source inside-- _you're_ the interface?”

...her name?

Kneeling by the box, he stared at it, and it smiled the woman's smile, waggling its fingers just like the woman might have done, wrapping her timelines around itself. “They must have told you the Moment had a conscience. Hello!”

He stared, continued to stare; it picked up more of his thoughts, and they _had_ told him, though he hadn't quite believed it-- still, he was willing to take the risk, _no more_.

“Oh, look at you.” There were other faces than this woman's, other friends-- humans, though, who couldn't quite understand what it meant to have his TARDIS be the closest thing he had to home. “Stuck between a girl and a box. Story of your life, eh, Doctor?”

“You-- know me?”

“I _hear_ you.” It shook its head-- it had a head to shake, that was new. The world wobbled strangely as it did, more as it stood up. It could hear his recognition-- Time Lord technology was often organic, or even sentient, in the case of TARDISes. The interface of the Moment wouldn't be a mere projection-- no, _interface_ , in this case, was a psychic interface. “All of you, jangling around in that dusty old head of yours. I chose this face and form especially for you, you know-- it's from your past.”

The recognition it heard faded. It took an instant out of eternity to shuffle through time again. Time was not linear, it simply _was_ , and it would never see it as anything different. Past and future were somewhat irrelevant.

“Or-- possibly your future? I always get those two mixed up.”

“I don't have a future,” the Doctor-man corrected, voice going flat. It plucked at time and found that yes, he most certainly did-- his survival here was in flux, but only just.

“I think I'm called-- Rose Tyler?” It tilted its head to one side like the woman might have done, if she had lived, if she had yet been born. But Rose Tyler was the girl, and the face it now wore was something _more_ than that, in a way. The familiarity. “No. Yes. No, sorry-- no, no, in _this_ form, I'm called... Bad Wolf.”

 _I bring life_ , the familiarity had said, is saying, will say.

Power immeasurable just a Moment away. It could feel gold swirling at its fingertips, filling its lungs, though it had no need for either. The Doctor-man's fear spiked again.

“Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?”

“I--” He blinked rapidly. Denial entered the forefront of his mind, a bitter taste. “Don't _call_ me that. It isn't my name.”

“That's the name in your head.”

“It _shouldn't_ be. I've lost the right.”

“And yet you're the one to save us all.”

So very _bitter_. But he had conviction. That had been clear from the instant it found itself being taken from the Vaults.

“...Yes.”

Bitter, bitter, _bitter_.

Exhaustion.

It opened up his mind, peeling back layer after layer, finding everything it needed and more.

Bitter. Conviction. Guilt, though the deed was not yet done.

Could it feel like that?

“If I ever develop an ego, you've got the job.”

The Doctor-man stood, then-- leaving the box to stand directly in front of it, something growing in his mind.

“If you have been inside my head, then you _know_ what I've seen.” _There_ was the soldier it had expected to find it eventually-- there was the anger, the frustration bubbling to the surface, fear evaporating in its heat. But just as quick as that heat had come, it faded away. Exhaustion, again. It did not sleep, in the biological sense of the word, but it thought it understood the concept of being tired a little bit more, just listening to his thoughts. “Suffering. Every moment in time and space is burning! It must end, and I intend to end it the only way I can.”

Suffering, yes-- yes, it could end that. But it had no wish to fill its purpose, to be an instrument of mass destruction at the hands of the power-hungry; worse, at the hands of a man like this, something good corrupted with something horrific, all for the right intentions; it had no wish to _die_.

He turned back to the box, stopping only when it spoke again.

“And you're going to use _me_ to end it by killing them all... Daleks and Time Lords alike. I could. But there will be consequences for you.”

“I have no desire to survive this.”

Eternity compressed itself into the space of time between one heartbeat and the next. The Moment pondered time and its myriad threads, the possibilities still open to it. No, the Doctor-man's survival was not a fixed point, not quite, but as time sludged forward, bleeding as it ripped and caught and the War raged on, there was one outcome that became increasingly likely.

His death. _Its_ death-- detonation, and the deaths of trillions of others, Time Lords and Daleks both the same, pain unquantifiable compressed into the space of a single moment. Or, its death, and his survival. _Or_... perhaps.

Eternity compressed itself into the space of time between one heartbeat and the next before expanding out again, and the Moment was sitting on a crate, and the Doctor-man, desperation intertwined with exhaustion, sat next to it.

“Then that's your punishment,” it said, and the Doctor-man looked at it, and time set itself on a new course. He would no longer die here, because the Moment would not allow it, and the Moment was but power immeasurable, just barely contained. “If you do this, if you kill them all, then that's the consequence.”

Gallifrey burning. Gallifrey falling. It reached out, to the capital under siege a hemisphere away, all the lives-- the fear, exponentially greater than that of this one man, overwhelming, potent-- lives, bright lights snuffed out.

“You _live_. Gallifrey... you're going to burn it, and all those Daleks with it... but all those children, too. How many children on Gallifrey right now?”

It looked over. The Doctor-man's eyes were distant, emotions the Moment could not put a name to overlapping one another, but his mind-- one single memory, rolling hills of red grass, and an estate, and children laughing bright and clear. Whose children-- his, perhaps? It chose not to look deeper, for a reason it did not yet know. Answers would come in time, they always did.

“I don't...”

“One day, you _will_ count them,” it said, and time solidified even further. It could feel it. The Doctor-man could as well; its words rang true in the still and quiet air. Grief swelled at the thought. Denial-- he had no desire to live past this.

If he chose to use it, after everything, he would live with the consequences, for the Moment itself could not-- and someone needed to survive, to understand, to make sure such a thing could never be repeated.

“Do you want to see what that will turn you into?” it asked, and his thoughts shied away even as others betrayed him with their interest. He shook his head. “Aren't you curious?”

It grabbed at time and twisted, following the threads that wrapped around the Doctor-man, finding ones from the future and drawing them back to the Now, pinching at the fabric of space so opposite corners touched together, prying open a hole in the time lock as though something so flimsy could keep it out.

Power immeasurable just a Moment away.

“I'm opening it windows on your future,” it said as the Doctor-man's fear spiked again. He recognized what it was, of course-- he was a Doctor of War, and a Lord of Time, and he knew what a time tunnel was when he saw one. The Time Lords had other technology designed to create them, however, and technology that could track him down, and it knew he needed to know he had not been discovered. “A tangle in time through the days to come, to the man today will make of you...”

Something red caught its eye, and space-time spat it out onto the dusty floor at their feet. The Moment plucked the answer to its question from the Doctor-man's mind; the red was a fez, a funny kind of hat. That didn't answer its question, in truth-- created more of them, even.

“...I wasn't expecting that.”

He bent down to pick up the fez and brush hay and dust from its velvet surface. Voices from the future echoed back in time to them, muffled by distance and the time lock which the Moment had to push the tunnels through. The Moment watched, and the Doctor-man listened, and it knew before he did when the decision had been made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always low-key headcanoned that the Bad Wolf, unintentionally or otherwise, had something to do with the Moment's sentience, so... yeah.
> 
> As always, thank you very much for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated <3
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


	3. Chapter 3

Three suns in the space of as many hours.

It was still aware of Gallifrey, centuries and light years away, and the ever-present pain and burning, but its interface, its physical presence-- it stood on a new world for the first time in its existence, soft ground under its feet, surrounded by warm air and a light breeze and so much _life_ , trees and grass and moss and green in myriad hues. It had three minds to open up, too, three of the Doctor-men, and it knew where time would likely take the man, should he burn Gallifrey as he intended, but seeing them, _hearing_ them--

“Anyone lose a fez?”

“ _You_. How can you be here? More to the point, _why_ are you here?”

The tenth had gone low and wary, half-step away from the Doctor-man, frown on his face; the eleventh was much the same, one hand slightly raised-- to point in accusation, to ward away? Revulsion rose prominent in their thoughts at the sight of the Doctor-man before them, disgust, _loathing_ \-- self-loathing. Hatred, perhaps. Pain, certainly, as memories of the War came back to haunt them anew. Emotions it struggled to put words to, having known so little.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” said the eleventh.

“Really,” agreed the tenth.

“You're _me_? Both of you?”

“Yep.”

“Even _that_ one?”

“Yes!”

“ _You're_ my future selves?”

“ _Yes_.”

A step forward taken by the Doctor-man; a step backwards taken by the tenth and the eleventh. The self-loathing only went in one direction, but it was interesting how the Doctor-man seemed equally reluctant to believe what was standing directly in front of him.

* * *

They were in a dungeon, a cell. Brighter than the Vaults, if less clean, but the concept was the same. The Moment leaned against a stone pillar, thinking, watching, waiting-- it was patient, and out here, they had all of the time in eternity. The Doctor-man rested on a crate, thinking, watching, waiting-- he knew it had brought him here to show him something, but he had yet to find out _what_.

“Okay, so the Queen of England is now a Zygon.” The tenth sounded annoyed, though the Moment could hear the lie in his words. It was frustration; things were happening that he didn't have a reason for. He needed reasons. “But never mind that-- why are we all together? Why are we all here?”

The eleventh paused in scratching out a message into the stone walls, and the Doctor-man looked up from where he sat. His thoughts flew to the barn, to the Moment resting on the dusty floor, to fire and death and cities burning burning _burning_ \--

“Well, me and Chinny, we were surprised, but _you_ came looking for us,” the tenth continued, frowning at him. “You knew it was going to happen. Who told you?”

The Doctor-man looked at the Moment, and the Moment held a finger to its lips, twisting time. Not yet.

“Oi, _Chinny_?” The eleventh was offended; that emotion, at least, rang true.

“Yeah, you do have a bit of a chin.”

* * *

“In theory, I can trigger an isolated sonic shift among the molecules, and the door should disintegrate.”

“We'd have to calculate the _exact_ harmonic resonance of the entire structure down to a sub-atomic level. Even the sonic would take years!”

“No, no, the sonic would take centuries... Oh, we might as well get started. Help to pass the timey-wimey. Do you have to talk like children?”

The Moment leaned against a pillar, and thought, watched, and waited, and listened, hidden from the eyes of the two in the room. The Doctor-man's attention was focused on his two future selves, wondering, worrying-- he was seeing the way they laughed and smiled and bickered like they were far younger, the lightheartedness just a little bit too forced to be real. The tenth and eleventh, for their parts, bubbled and broiled with that deep loathing, revulsion churning in their stomachs and bile rising in their throats-- bitter, bitter, and it had thought the Doctor-man's guilt was a potent thing. It had yet to properly meet these two futures.

“What is it that makes you so ashamed of being a grown-up? Oh, the way you both look at me, what _is_ that? I'm trying to think of a better word than _dread_.”

“It must be really recent for you.”

“Recent?”

“The Time War. The last day. The day you killed them all.”

“The day _we_ killed them all.”

“Same thing.”

It watched the tenth walk past, fiddling with his screwdriver; it brushed against his mind and felt a despair and anger _bitterbitterbitter_ so powerful that-- it didn't have a brain to release chemicals and hormones to alter its mood and perception of the world, for it was still but a box, power immeasurable only just contained, but listening to that, it thought it felt sad.

“It's history for them,” it said, and the Doctor-man glanced up. “All decided. They think their future is real. They don't know it's still up to you.”

He looked down, averting his gaze. The Moment leaned against a pillar, watching the tenth; it crouched next to the eleventh and saw him carving in the stone, trying to ignore the world around him; it sat next to the Doctor-man on the bench, back against the wall.

“I don't talk about it.”

“You're _not_ talking about it,” the tenth bit out. “There's no one else here.”

It reached out. Gallifrey was burning, entire continents set aflame, time bleeding and dying-- in this place, with the tenth and the eleventh, that was past, and the War was time locked, and time was healing, and it was less painful to think. But it was both here and on Gallifrey, and time bled and died and children screamed-- the Daleks increased their bombardment, and it could feel the entire planet shake with the force.

“Go on, ask them.”

The Doctor-man turned to look at it; it looked back, solemn. He could not use it while still waiting for someone to tell him that he was in the right or in the wrong, while he was still sure-yet-unsure. It would not let him, and neither would it let him die.

“Ask them what you need to know.”

The question rose up in his thoughts, and dread of his own-- he didn't want to know the answer.

But he needed to.

“...Did you ever count?”

“Count what?”

“How many children there were on Gallifrey that day.”

The response was instantaneous, and the Moment blinked out of existence to process-- denial and denial and nonono _no_ \-- bile rising in their throats, and pain, and pain, and pain.

“I have absolutely no idea,” said the eleventh, and the tenth stared at him; it closed its eyes at the lie in his words.

“How _old_ are you now?”

“Ah, I don't know. I lose track. Twelve hundred and something, I think-- unless I'm lying. I can't remember if I'm lying about my age! That's how old I am.”

“Four hundred years older than me, and in all that time, you've never even wondered how many there were? You never once counted?”

“Tell me, what would be the _point_?”

And at the same time:

“Two point four seven billion.”

Pain, and pain, and pain, and pain-- the self-loathing went in more than one direction now, incredulity at how one could lie about that, could just _forget_ , could possibly move on-- move on from war, from _the War_ \-- and the eleventh knew, and that loathing was directed inward as well. The Moment propped its head up on one hand, thinking, and watched, and waited, and listened.

* * *

“I don't know who you are. Either of you. I haven't got the _faintest_ idea.”

The Moment sat next to him and felt Gallifrey burn and shudder and threaten to shake apart with time and space itself. The War was ending, and the Time Lords were losing, and while there were a myriad of ways to get there, it could only find two options the more it looked. Let the universe burn, or use it.

Or, perhaps?

“They're you,” it said, slipping away from Gallifrey and distancing itself. There was only pain to be found there. There was only pain to be found _here_ , this was true, but it didn't care to immerse itself in both at once. “They're what _you_ become if you destroy Gallifrey. The man who regrets, and the man who forgets... the moment is coming. The Moment is _me_. You have to decide.”

Time shuddered and twisted, and it waited to see which outcome would arrive first. It would not let him use it while he was still sure-yet-unsure, and neither would it let him die.

“No,” the Doctor-man muttered, and the Moment flickered out of sight.

Not yet.

* * *

It leaned against a pillar and pondered.

The familiarity it felt with this face-- time was tangled around the woman to whom it belonged, and it could understand a little better why it had been confused about when she and the Doctor-man had met. There was an instant when the universe herself had seen her, and she had seen the universe, and the _power_...

_I take the words, and I scatter them._

The woman-- Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf-- the woman was this Doctor-man's future and his past. And she was the Moment's future and its past, as well. The familiarity that it felt with this face, it could trace it all the way back to the instant it first awoke and heard the song of the universe around it.

_Everything must come to dust. All things._

It knew this woman, her timelines intertwined with its own, intertwined with his. It could feel her imprint on the tenth's mind, not quite as prominent on the eleventh's, but still present with all the other scars.

What could happen, if it revealed itself to them both? But-- no. Not yet, if ever. The loathing needed to go; the Doctor-man needed to be sure of himself.

But it still watched the tenth, despite knowing this.

“It's the same screwdriver,” it said, looking from the tenth to the Doctor-man. There were things they needed to know, still, things they all needed to learn. “Same software, different case.”

“Four hundred years,” the Doctor-man murmured, and it smiled at the glimmer of an idea it could hear.

“I'm sorry?”

“At a software level, they're all the same device, aren't they! Same software, different case.”

And they _were_ the same man. They just had to realize it-- they were the same man, regardless of the War and the events which had happened/almost happened/might have happened throughout it. The tenth looked at the screwdriver still in his hand; the eleventh pulled his out of his coat pocket.

“Yeah.”

“So...”

“ _So_ , it would take centuries for the screwdriver to calculate how to disintegrate the door. But-- scanning the door, implanting the calculation as a permanent subroutine in the software architecture-- _and_ , if you really are me, with your sandshoes and your dicky-bow--”

The tenth looked offended; the eleventh made a face; the Moment wondered if this was what amusement felt like.

“--and that screwdriver is still mine, that calculation is still going on!”

The tenth realized it first, holding up the screwdriver, looking at the readings, listening to the quiet, whistling whir--

“Yeah, still going!”

“Calculation complete!” the eleventh breathed, staring at his own.

The Moment leaned against a pillar, watching, waiting, listening; it took the joy that it felt growing in three shared minds and wrapped around it, and it felt its expression curve into a smile, feeling strangely light. The Doctor-man caught its gaze for a fraction of a second.

“Same software, different face,” it said, and it felt something that had been stuck in his mind slide back into place.

* * *

It didn't have a concept of _wedding_ , didn't know the word until it plucked it from the Doctor-man's mind, and then it had the definition and everything beyond it which words could not describe-- the event, and all the intrinsic meaning which it held for the Oncoming Storm. They were outside, tents and fluttering fabrics and an abundance of green, and it rested in the minds of everyone present, the clergyman and the Queen and the Doctor-man and his two futures and his human friend.

The human had her own set of emotions about weddings, all tangled up and terribly messy, but she was ultimately happy; the Moment wrapped that happiness around itself and prodded a little at her timelines, finding that they were just as entangled with the Doctor-man's as the face it now wore. _Impossible girl_ , it thought, or maybe someone else thought-- someone else said? Will say?

“Is there a lot of this in the future?”

“It does start to happen, yeah.”

It couldn't parse through the Doctor-man's emotions, unable to put words to half of them; it doubted he could name them, even, had he been pressed. His thoughts were of his wife, a face in vivid detail, the catch of the light of twin suns in rose-red hair, crinkled skin at the corners of blue eyes and the sound of laughter, mechanic's hands and the smell of grease-stained coveralls-- an older grief, for someone deeply loved and long dead, no less painful for the distance between then and the Now. Thoughts about the tenth, and how if it had been four hundred years for the eleventh, then it had to have been less for the tenth, and he was furious with the eleventh _bitterbitterbitter_ for moving on, yet he himself had moved on, at the very least enough to pretend the memory of his wife no longer pained him.

The eleventh thought of his wife, too, but the grief was buried underneath others, cradled gently in acceptance. There were others; the face it wore now (whom the tenth could also seem to ignore, at least enough to pretend), a woman with improbably curly hair and timelines intertwined with the Doctor-man's, but in a different way than the other two-- where it needed to look closely to find where theirs ended and his began, this new woman was tangled around him, knotted and messy. It smoothed out a few of the creases and moved on, intent on other thoughts, other things. A pair of hearts big enough to fit the universe inside them, despite how it hurt.

A man capable of such love, for all the Moment struggled to understand the concept-- capable of such terrible things. Perhaps the two were related, one allowing the continuation of the other.

But if that was true, what did that mean for itself?

* * *

It had followed them through fragments of time, watching, waiting, listening; they crawled through the oil of a painting and came out the other side, plan made, working in perfect synchronization. For all their arguing, they could work together when the time came, when such a thing became necessary. Just further proof of what the Moment had been trying to show them: they were the same man. The man who would use it needed to be sure of himself, sure in his convictions, not waiting for someone to tell him that he was right or that he was wrong-- the Doctor-man needed to see what would come of his choice and then _make it_.

“You're about to murder millions of people.”

“To save _billions_. How many times have you made that calculation?”

“Once. Turned me into the man I am now-- I'm not even sure who that is any more.”

“You tell yourself it's justified, but it's a lie. Because-- what I did that day was wrong. Just _wrong_.”

The Doctor-man saw it standing in front of the human, just for a fraction of a second. It was waiting, watching, listening. It would remind him why he was here. He needed to choose. There were only so many paths to take from here.

“And, because I got it wrong, I'm going to make _you_ get it right.”

* * *

Humans were more perceptive than the Moment had given them credit for, so intent had it been on listening to the Doctor-man, waiting for his decision to be made; Clara had sat down and spoken with him and walked him right into admitting that he had yet to end the War. The Moment, leaning against a table, could feel his thoughts solidifying. It was a deeper conviction than one it had felt before-- less an action of desperation, now. This was something far more sure. He knew what needed to be done.

It looked at time and found all the outcomes left to it, and it knew what needed to be done.

“He regrets it. I see it in his eyes every day. He'd do anything to change it.”

“Including saving all these people.” The Doctor-man gestured to the far side of the room – too much like the Vaults for the Moment's liking, though this was much brighter than its place of rest – and the humans there. “How many worlds has his regret saved, do you think? Look over there! Humans and Zygons working together in peace.”

Clara looked over her shoulder, a sad kind of smile on her face.

“How did you know?”

“Your eyes,” she told him. “You're so much younger.”

It mulled over her words, and it mulled over his surprise. She was sure of herself, too, a quiet kind of thing. The Doctor-man wondered, after all that he had done, everything he had seen in the War, the blood that stained his hands and clothes and haunted his nightmares and his every waking step-- after all of that, how anyone could consider him to be _young_.

And at the same time, his resolve only hardened.

“Then, all things considered, it's time I grew up.” He looked over her shoulder to see the Moment, and it nodded back, solemn. “I've seen all I needed. The Moment has come.”

It should not be able to feel. It wasn't biologically capable of _feeling_. It was but power immeasurable only just contained inside of a box; how could a box feel anything? But it could hear his resolve and determination, and it found that such a thing was somehow worse than before, the sure-yet-unsure, the timelines more in flux than they were now. All the pain to drive a man to this... it was opposed to that which it had been created to do. Everything living creature should shy away from such an option.

“I'm ready.”

“I know you are.”

* * *

Here they stood.

“You wanted a big red button.”

Here they stood. The Moment had unfolded itself and let a sliver of its power out, rose-red, catching in the light of twin suns. The Doctor-man looked at it. The Moment looked at him.

“One big bang. No more Time Lords... no more Daleks. Are you sure?”

“I was sure when I came in here.”

 _Lie_ , the Moment thought but did not say.

“There is no other way.”

 _Lie_ , the Moment thought again.

He could think of two options: use the Moment, destroy Time Lords and Daleks alike; don't use the Moment, let the rest of the universe be destroyed in their stead. The Moment could see all of time and space before it, unfolding in possibilities uncountable, and it could see two options-- and it could see three options. His were not the only ways.

“You've seen the men you will become.”

“Those men.” The Doctor-man nodded. “Extraordinary.”

It smiled. It knew the meaning of a smile, now. It had helped him realize this, too, it felt his conviction--

\--or no?

“They were you,” it said.

“No,” he disagreed. “They _are_ the Doctor.”

“You're the Doctor, too.”

“No,” he said again-- and the Moment understood. It had convinced the future two of their past; it had convinced the past of his future. But the eleventh was still lost, stumbling blindly forward, having forgotten who he was. The tenth was cold and alone. The Doctor-man who stood in front of it now did not believe he had the right to carry his name-- believed instead that the men he would become bore that privilege, and he would do whatever it took to get them there.

Yes, it understood. It had been wrong, before. It didn't think it had ever been wrong-- though, of course, it had little opportunity to be neither wrong nor right. But it _was_ right in one thing, and that was a third option. An option none of them had seen, that none of them could begin to fathom. It _knew_.

“Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame... whatever the cost.”

_Everything must come to dust. All things._

_Everything dies._

The Doctor-man placed his hand atop the button, rose-red and glowing, cut crystal catching the light of the twin suns filtering through the dusty air. Children laughed in his mind, joyful and carefree, but the tenth's voice overlapped the memory, hard and angry-- _two point four seven billion_.

_**The Time War ends.** _

Three options. It was not going to let this man die. Neither would it let itself be used.

“You know the sound the TARDIS makes?” it asked, nimble fingers stitching time and space back together, weaving a path from past to present, from the future to the Now. Three options. The Doctor-man stared, hand still on the button-- thinking, quite loudly, that considering how determined it had been to make sure _he_ was sure, it seemed terribly insistent on changing his mind. “That wheezing, groaning... that sound brings hope wherever it goes.”

It could find this woman's memories, this Rose Tyler, could pick out her thoughts of the Doctor from her timeline intertwined with his, but it had no need of that. All it had to do was watch-- for the Doctor had touched innumerable lives, some of them for the worse, but so very many of them for the better. He and his TARDIS were a beacon of hope, even _here_ , as he betrayed every principle he had ever stood by to fight for the place he still called home, no matter how poorly they had treated him, no matter how far he had run. Soldiers told stories of him: _I fought with the Doctor. He saved my life-- my troops' lives-- their lives-- our lives--_ yes, he brought hope, and his TARDIS brought him.

It reached out to the ship, running its fingers over scratched and charred doors, rusted railings, a battered console. She reached out in turn, but it gently pushed back. _Not yet_ , it told Her _, but soon. We'll need all of you, soon_.

“Yes.” The Doctor-man nodded, slow, blinking back tears. His thoughts were much the same. “Yes, I like to think it does.”

“To _anyone_ who hears it, Doctor.” The Moment looked him in the eye, stressing each one of its words, almost wishing that he could hear it the same way it could hear him. Anyone who heard that noise, himself included; _himself_ , he, the Doctor. Always the Doctor. “Anyone, however lost. Even you.”

And as the dust in the air began to swirl with a sourceless wind, and the first faint outlines of blue began to appear in the corners of the room, and the Doctor-man's hearts stuttered with some deep, deep emotion, the Moment wrapped time close around it and smiled just the way Rose Tyler might have done.


	4. Chapter 4

“I told you,” Clara stressed. “He hasn't done it yet.”

“Go away now, all of you.” The Doctor-man turned his back. “This is for me alone.”

The tenth, wary, pained: “These events should be time-locked. We shouldn't even _be_ here.”

The eleventh, more suspicious, equally wary: “So something let us through.”

The Moment sat on a crate, watching, waiting, listening. Its smile was sad. Power immeasurable only just contained inside a box-- but power immeasurable was something that could never be quantified. Who was to say it lacked the capacity to feel?

“You clever boys,” it murmured.

Its legs swung back and forth, swishing in the air. Clara waited by the TARDISes, twin blue boxes; it could hear them both, along with the third miles away in the desert, three of Her.

_**I  k n o w  y o u** _

TARDISes were never meant to communicate in words. Even power immeasurable would have some difficulty changing that. Her voice was similar to the song of the universe, impossibly beautiful and very old and just a little bit past the point where descriptions could do it justice. A kindred soul, if they both had such things.

 _And I know you_ , it replied. _Not yet. Soon._

They stood around the box, three of them, and it was standing in the barn with the doomsday machine set before them that they could fully understand, and if anyone was ever going to convince the Doctor-man of something, it would have to be himself.

“You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't _possible_ to get it right.”

“But this time...”

“...you don't have to do it alone.”

Three outcomes-- four, now, because adding another possibility would always allow for further possibilities to branch off of it, but the fourth was as equally unacceptable as the first. Could it even dare to make the same man live this three times over?

What gave it the right?

When the Doctor-man spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. The eleventh gave a tiny kind of nod, understanding. Their minds were in sync, determination, pain and pain and pain and _pain_ , conviction, solidarity.

“Thank you.”

But the fourth option was equally as unacceptable as the first two, the ones the Doctor-man had seen as his _only_ two options. The third choice, the one they had yet to make, it remained a mystery to them still. It knew they could hear the screams of Gallifrey as it burned, could feel the planet dying around them, time writhing in agony, convulsing, ripping apart and being knit back together all at once, but a hemisphere away from the Citadel, where the truth of the fighting was-- even this distance was enough to dull it in their minds.

“You told me you wiped out your own people,” Clara said, in tears, and the Moment felt her sadness, too. “I just-- I never pictured you doing it.”

There was a third option. They needed to be reminded.

It sighed, weary, and wrapped a slice of space-time around them, layering it over the current reality and watching as the world went suddenly dark. Shock burst like explosions in their minds, confusion, _where are_ \--?

“What's happening?”

“Nothing,” said the Doctor-man, the only one who knew that it was interfering again. “It's a projection.”

“It's reality around you,” it corrected, stepping aside to let a child run past, terrified, soldiers slowly retreating in her wake as the Daleks continued their advance. Klaxons blared, and the low _gong_ of cloisters thrummed in the air, and the planet continued to fracture.

“These are the people you're going to burn?”

“There isn't anything we can do.”

“He's _right_. There isn't another way! There never was.”

No, there was always another option. Even if it had to make one first. Time stretched out before it, endless, but it could see ideas forming in their minds even before they were aware of it themselves.

In the Now, in the future, in a place that existed entirely out of this layer of reality, this universe of space-time-- it saw a world without sunlight, without starlight, without moonlight; it saw entire continents set aflame; it saw a people slowly struggling to rebuild. It walked the halls of the High Council's meeting chambers and saw guards, and a crumpled set of robes with a heavy collar and a glove and key and peculiarly ornate sash, and an old woman with gray in her hair, and a man whose life force flickered in his body with counts of four. It skipped between star clusters and heard the news of Gallifrey's return, rapidly spreading. It watched children climbing out of shelters, from behind rubble, saw the smoke and smog clearing from the sky. It felt the fighting stop.

Three options.

It nodded, and the images faded.

“Gentlemen, I have hand four _hundred_ years to think about this. I've changed my mind!”

He waved his sonic at the box, and the Moment, more amused than anything, let the button recede; such a thing could have no effect on it. The Doctor-man stared at the eleventh, and the tenth was grinning, bouncing about, slapping one hand against the wooden exterior of his TARDIS, and Clara dried her eyes.

“This time, there's _three_ of us.”

Three options.

“Oh! Oh, _yes_ \-- that is good. That is _brilliant_!”

“Ha!”

“I've been thinking about it for _centuries_.”

“She didn't just show me any old future-- she showed me _exactly_ the future I needed to see.”

It smiled. Joy from four minds wrapped warm around it, and the universe was singing in another time and place, and Gallifrey fell no more. “Now you're getting it.”

The joy wobbled, wavered; confusion started to leak through, and the eleventh frowned slightly, and the tenth paused in front of where the Moment sat on a crate, still swinging its legs around.

“Eh? Who did?”

_Well, me and Chinny, we were surprised, but **you** came looking for us. You knew it was going to happen._

_Who told you?_

_Who are you looking at?_

_These events should be time-locked. We shouldn't even **be** here._

_So something let us through._

“Oh, Bad Wolf girl, I could _kiss_ you!”

It laughed; his joy was just as potent as his grief, perhaps even more so. “Yeah, _that's_ going to happen.”

Except it would, one day. The Bad Wolf would. But not now. Not yet.

“Sorry, did you just say _Bad Wolf_?”

The tenth was staring; the eleventh was starting to hesitate, and in another time, the Doctor-man would have heard their questions over the delirium of relief-- but Gallifrey was burning, and they had to be quick. Eternity compressed itself into the space of time between one heartbeat and the next, and it picked apart the timelines around them and knit them back together; the Doctor-man knew now he would not need to add the blood of Gallifrey to all that stained him, and he did not hear their words, did not see their shock.

His eyes were so, so much younger.

* * *

“The Dalek fleets are surrounding Gallifrey, firing on it constantly,” said the Doctor-man.

“The Sky Trench is holding,” said the tenth, hoarse, and the Moment tugged space tighter around itself to hide it, “but what if the whole planet just disappeared?”

“The Daleks would be firing on each other,” said the eleventh, bouncing a little bit. “They'd destroy themselves in their own crossfire!”

“Gallifrey would be gone, the Daleks would be destroyed-- or trapped in the time lock-- and it would look to the rest of the universe as if they'd annihilated each other.”

Three options-- three blessed options, and it could feel time smoothing out before it, braiding into a single path. Others branched out from the choice being made, yes, but time had teetered on the edge of a fixed point for a long, long while-- and here it was. This was the only thing that _could_ happen, now.

It swung its legs from its crate, watching the Time Lords growing more excited, feeling their cautious, frightened hope gather itself into something like elation; it waited for them to announce its role, though it already knew what needed to be done.

“But where would Gallifrey be?”

“Frozen! Frozen in an _instant_ of time, safe and hidden away.”

“Exactly...”

“...like a painting.”

Time was fixed, settling, and it had truthfully forgotten what a world had been without war. The universe was hesitating, her cries less pained.

“We need our other selves--” The eleventh rocked back and forth. “Need to start running the calculations. Need to keep them all in one place long enough without murdering each other so they won't remember being there. Ooo, dear.”

“You do seem to argue a fair bit,” said Clara, leaning back against one of the crates. “Have you always done that?”

“No,” said the tenth.

“I would never,” said the Doctor-man.

“Of course not!” said the eleventh.

“Yes, you have,” said the Moment, and the Doctor-man shot it an affronted look from the corner of his eye; it shrugged in response. “I won't be able to break into the time lock from the outside-- you're going to have to convince them to leave me here.”

If he had suspicions, the Moment could not find them in the Doctor-man's mind; he turned to face his other two selves and Clara and said, “It's the Moment that let us come here. I can use it to manipulate the time tunnels, if the two of you want to set about gathering up the rest of us?”

The eleventh made a face. “Sure, leave the hard job to us,” he muttered, with no real heat behind his words, and a grin slowly overtook his expression in the end.

Though he could not see it, the Moment smiled back.

* * *

“There was a War--”

“They do tend to happen--”

“--not what I meant--”

“--heavens, did I regenerate with the faces of children--?”

“Susan--?”

“--only twelve, but he's saying he's the last--”

“Vanity issues.”

“ _Excuse_ me--”

“--grandfather! Have you seen your sixth self?”

“--if you would just _listen_ \--”

“--no trouble keeping them in one spot for long enough the time lines scramble.”

“We really never do stop talking...”

* * *

The Doctor-man was the first to return; the Moment tracked all of them, following silently, and it watched him step into his battered ship and set coordinates for Gallifrey. It leaned against Her console and tried not to shudder at the feeling of time bloodied and scarred around it, worse inside the TARDIS than out as the ship struggled to fly through the snarls and snags, engines groaning in pain. It let a sliver of power out, enough to ease Her suffering, and the flight smoothed into something almost tranquil, fast and smooth. The Doctor-man startled, looking about until his gaze landed on it.

“Was that you?” he asked.

“Could've been,” it answered with a smile and a finger pressed to its lips. He chuckled, stepping around it to input further coordinates at the monitor.

“I'll be in position first,” he explained, though the Moment already knew, had already seen it happen, in a sense, and all of eternity after the fact. “Give the others a template to work off of, since we can't materialize directly into the atmosphere. Too close to the Sky Trenches, in the way of Dalek fire-- wouldn't do to linger!”

“All of you?”

“All of us,” he agreed, sounding pleased. “And you, you'll just-- be sitting in that barn, when the planet is moved?”

“I like it a lot better than the Vaults, I have to say.”

“One wouldn't think that a weapon had the capacity to _like_ much of anything.”

“One wouldn't think that a weapon had the capacity to destroy everything contained within the space of a time lock that encompassed the majority of the known universe, but here we are.” The Doctor-man looked at it, and the Moment just shrugged, running its fingers over some of the levers and buttons on the console.

“Well,” said the Doctor-man, clearing his throat a couple of times-- reaching out, then, to place his hand over its own, and it was never supposed to _like_ and it certainly was never supposed to _care_ or appreciate the feeling of the warmth of the sun on its artificial skin and the touch of a fellow life form-- was not supposed to consider itself a life form by any sense of the word, _not at all_ \-- but here they were. “Since it's likely I won't be seeing you again for quite some time, let me take the time I have now to thank you. Words... cannot express what I would like to say. But even if we fail, you have still given us the chance to _try_ , and Gallifrey herself a glimpse of hope, and that was more than I ever dreamed could be possible, this late in the War.”

It smiled-- not the Bad Wolf's smile, though it still wore her timelines like a robe around it, but the way it thought a smile was supposed to work, all on its own, feeling its mouth curve up into something soft, gentle, paradoxical to its primary purpose.

It had not acted solely for his benefit, or for that of the planet's. Some part of it knew that if it were ever to be used, it would not awake again in the aftermath. Even so, seeing this man, seeing time twist bend onto a path of healing, wrapped around Gallifrey like shelter against a storm, it... felt. Felt pleased, perhaps. Relieved.

“I hear you, Doctor. Even the things you don't say. And you are very welcome.”

* * *

“We're going to freeze Gallifrey.”

“I'm sorry, _what_?”

“Using our TARDISes, we're going to freeze Gallifrey in a single moment in time.”

“You know, like those stasis cubes? A single moment in time, held in a parallel pocket universe.”

“ _Except_ we're going to do it to a whole planet!”

“And all the people on it.”

“Even if that were _possible_ , which it isn't--! Why would you do such a thing?”

“...Because the alternative is burning.”

“And I've seen that.”

“And I never want to see it again.”

It was in the barn, now, but simultaneously it was in the War Rooms, and in every blue TARDIS whizzing through the sky, and it watched, and it listened. It could see Gallifrey burning in each of their minds; it could feel the shock and horror and revulsion of the younger Doctors as they watched what remained of their former home turn to ash, and it could feel their determination to prevent such a thing from ever happening; it listened to the mind of the General, battle-weary, rigid structure overwhelmed with disbelief, denial, and a stark absence of anything resembling hope.

Time was settling onto a single course for the first time since the War had begun, and the relief at such a thing was almost overpowering. It watched in silence and waited for words to turn to actions, waited for the pull that it knew would signal Gallifrey's exit from the universe as it now stood.

“Calling the War Council of Gallifrey-- this is the Doctor!”

“Good luck!”

“Standing by, gents.”

“We're ready!”

“Commencing calculations...”

“...soon be there!”

“--across the boundaries that divide one universe from another.”

“Just need to lock onto my coordinates!”

“And for my next trick--!”

It paused; time slowed to a stop, in its perception, and it watched a thirteenth box soar out the time tunnels it had not yet closed. Her mind, such as the mind of a TARDIS existed, was jubilant even as She shied away from the pain of the War, and She brushed against it with laughter like bells and strings and starlight. The twelfth, inside, looked up with a smirk when it appeared, though it had not intended to make itself visible; there was a woman it had caught in glimpses of his timestream, and--?

“No, sir! All thirteen!”

And Gallifrey shuddered around it, and it felt time lurch and space fall away from it, and the universe rippled in a way that it had never witnessed before, song growing loud-- abruptly quiet, then--

\--and then silence.

* * *

“Do you think we actually succeeded?” the tenth Doctor asked, staring at the painting hanging before him. His future self shrugged, attempting nonchalance though he couldn't make himself stop smiling, but the War Doctor spoke up in a definite tone.

“We did.”

Both turned to face him. Clara took a sip of her tea.

“You really think so?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the War Doctor. His thoughts were of hair like spun gold and a voice familiar-yet-not. He did not elaborate further, but both Doctors were content to agree with him, traitor hearts beginning to hope all over again, and Clara smiled.

 _I bring life_... to Gallifrey.

 _The Time War **ends**_... and Gallifrey stands.

Perhaps...?

And somewhere far away, in a universe adjacent to their own, a box hummed in the shadows of an old barn. Had anyone been present, they would have heard a song familiar-yet-not, and the howling of wolves.


End file.
